Jozef Maximilián Petzval
Encyclopedia
Joseph PetzvalJoseph Petzval ' onMouseout='HidePop("84630")' href="/topics/Spišská_Belá">Zipser Bela
– September 19, 1891) was a Hungarian / Slovak mathematician
, inventor, and physicist
of German origin, born in Upper Hungary
(today Slovakia
).
He is best known for his work in optics
. Petzval studied and later lectured at the Institutum Geometricum (currently Budapest University of Technology and Economics
) in Buda
(today part of Budapest
). He headed the Institute of Practical Geometry and Hydrology/Architecture between 1841 and 1848. Later in life, he accepted an appointment to a chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna
. Petzval became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
in 1873.
Petzval is considered to be one of the main founders of geometrical optics
, modern photography
and cinematography
. Among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens
and opera glasses
, both still in common use today. He is also credited with the discovery of the Laplace transform and is also known for his extensive work on aberration in optical systems
.
within the Austrian Empire
(today Spišská Belá
, Slovakia
) as the son of a German
schoolteacher. Petzval's ancestors came from Moravia
(the present-day Czech Republic
). The original spelling of his father's name was Ján Krtitel Pecival. In 1801, his father married the Zipser-German Zuzana Kreutzmann, who was born in Szepesbéla, Kingdom of Hungary
, a daughter of the previous teacher at the same school in Zipser Bela. The couple brought up six children: Gustáv Adolf (1800–1803), who died prematurely; Nestor Aemilianus (1804–1806); Jozef Maximilián; Petrol Baltazár (1809–1889); and three daughters. In 1810, the family moved to Késmárk (today Kežmarok
) and in 1819 to Leutschau
(today Levoča
).
Magyars, Germans and Slavs all lay claim on Petzvál.
Petzval's entire family shared an aptitude for technology. His father worked as a teacher
at the evangelical school in Zipser Bela, as well as an organist
in Zipser Bela and later in Käsmark
. He was also a conductor
and a geodesist
in Lőcse. He had a reputation as an outstanding musician and composer, who was also gifted mechanically. In 1824, he was awarded two patents: one for improvements to the pendulum clock
and the other for a "polygraph" (typewriter
). Petzval's brother, Petrol Baltazár Petzval, was a well-respected mathematician, engineer and astronomer.
, and began his secondary school studies in Kežmarok and Pudlein
. On October 1, 1819, he returned to his family in Leutschau
, and entered high school. Both in elementary school and high school he ranked among the best in his class in the subjects of Latin
(the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary) and religion; however, he struggled with his Hungarian
. Before arriving at Leutschau, he was, interestingly enough, also very weak in mathematics. In Leutschau, however, he clearly improved in this discipline.
One anecdote told about Petzval is as follows: When his family had already decided to make a shoemaker out of Petzval, he read the book Analytic Paper on the Elements of Mathematics by the German mathematician Hauser over the summer holidays, just after completing his fourth class in elementary school. He was preparing to undergo a repeat class in mathematics. After Petzval finished the book, the child who had been a weak math pupil swiftly became a math genius.
After finishing high school, Petzval decided to move to the Institutum Geometricum, the engineering faculty of the Pester University. Before that, he had to complete a two-year Lyceum
, which he attended from 1823 to 1825 in Kaschau
. When he arrived at Košice in 1823, Petzval was already well-versed in the subjects of Latin, mathematical analysis, classical literature and stylistics. In addition to his Slovak
he was able to speak perfectly in Czech, German and Hungarian. With his father's assistance, he also learned French
and English
.
After completing the Lyceum, Petzval worked for a year as an educator for Count Almássy in the Heves county
. In addition to bringing in some urgently-needed money, this experience also provided him with important social contacts.
From 1826 to 1828, Petzval studied at the Institutum Geometricum in Prague
, and earned an engineering diploma in 1828. In the same year, he joined the graduate degree program of the university, and became the self-appointed adjunct chair for the Physics Department (in 1831). From 1828 to 1835, Petzval simultaneously worked as an urban engineer
for the city of Prague—-particularly as a specialist in flood abatement and sewers—-and studied mathematics, mechanics and practical geometry. He authored an unrealized plan to build a navigation channel around Prague. In 1830, his dam computations saved Prague from an inundation caused by the flooding of the Vltava
. After he received his Ph.D. in 1832, he taught as an associate professor at the university in Budapest. During this period, he also received a degree in mathematics. In 1835, he was appointed a university professor in higher mathematics.
After being invited to the University of Vienna in 1836, Petzval accepted a position of the chair of mathematics there in 1837, and worked until 1877 as a professor of mathematics. Apart from mathematics, he was also concerned with mechanics, ballistics, optics, and acoustics. His lectures on the theory of algebraic equations, which integrated linear and differential equations with constant and variable coefficients, ballistics, acoustic theory, and other areas were high quality and became well attended.
Petzval moved into a rented abandoned monastery at Kahlenberg
mountain (according to some sources after 1859). He founded his own glass-sharpening workshop there. His lenses became world famous because Petzval was also a skillful lens sharpener and precision mechanic.
In 1840, he discovered his famous portrait lens. 1845 brought disputes with the entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer (1812–1878) over who had the right to produce Petzval's lenses. In 1859, Petzval's home was broken into, and his manuscripts — a result of many years of research — were destroyed. Petzval never managed to reconstruct the lost documents. His most refined technical book on optics, lost with his manuscripts, would never appear in print. From then on, he primarily concerned himself with acoustics and began to withdraw from society. His enterprise with Carl Dietzler failed in 1862 (see further below); Dietzler died in 1872.
In 1869, at the age of 62, Petzval married his housekeeper, but she died four years later. In 1877, he stopped lecturing, withdrew to a monastery on Kahlenberg, and became a hermit
.
Petzval died in Vienna in 1891, nearly forgotten, embittered, and destitute. His grave is in the Viennese central cemetery. His bitterness at the end of his life can probably be traced, on the one hand, to his continuing controversy with Voigtländer, the loss of his manuscripts, and his business failure; and on the other hand, to the fact that he was never really acknowledged for his lifelong work in the field of optics. Just before his death, Petzval was reported to have said:
, and was also a dedicated athlete. In Vienna, he was for a long time the best fencer and ring fighter in the city. He also inherited an excellent talent for music from his father. Allegedly, while he was a lecturer in Vienna, he always rode to his lectures on a black Arabian horse.
Petzval never wanted to communicate anything about his private life, and was therefore relatively inscrutable to others during his lifetime. As Dr. Ermenyi described in his book, Dr. Josef Petzval's Life
At the end of his life he lived in increasingly greater isolation in his "castle" on Kahlenberg, with only his horse for company, although several academies and scholarly societies appointed him a member (member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (1846/1849), external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1873), honorary member of the Union of the Czech mathematicians and physicists (1881), carriers of the French Charles Chevalier Platinmedaille, and others).
Petzval had a controversy with Christian Doppler
over problems of acoustics, and Doppler responded in 1852 with a book entitled "Remarks Over the Objections Stated by Professor Petzval Against the Correctness of My Theory".
In particular he was involved in lengthy disputes with the entrepreneur Voigtländer. These began in 1845, when Petzval raised the issue of fraud for the first time. Because Petzval only held a patent in Austria, Voigtländer shifted his production to Braunschweig
in Germany
, where he produced about 60,000 Petzval lenses in the following 20 years. Petzval for his part co-operated since 1854 with the Austrian optics producer Dietzler. The latter's lenses were marketed in Austria as the "photographic Dialyt
", while Voigtländer marketed the lenses in Germany and Austria as the "Voightländer Orthoskop". After further interference by Voigtländer, Dietzler went bankrupt in 1862. When Petzval threatened legal action, Voigtländer closed his Austrian plant in 1866. Petzval could have then transferred the marketing, but he had renounced working with optics after his home was robbed in 1859 and worked instead on acoustics. In 1862, he also stopped lecturing on optics.
presented the Daguerreotype
, the first form of photography. Petzval learned of the invention from his friend, Viennese professor Andreas von Ettinghausen. The daguerreotype was problematic in that it required exposure times as long as 30 minutes to create a portrait. With Ettninghausen's urging, Petzval set up a workshop and laboratory at Kahlenberg in Vienna and, after six months of complex computations, produced designs for improved objective lenses for both portraiture and landscape photography. Because the artillery
was one of the few occupations that used advanced mathematical computations at the time, Archduke Ludwig lent eight artillery cannoners and three corporals to the computational efforts. The calculations these men carried out in tandem with each other have been regarded as an early (albeit human) example of a parallel computer.
Petzval's portrait objective lens (Petzval Porträtobjektiv
) was an almost distortionless Anachromatischer vierlinser (double achromatic objective lens, with four lenses in three groups). The luminous intensity of this flat "portrait lens" was substantially higher than the daguerre standard of 1839, the Wollaston chevalier linse . The screen with a focal length of 160 mm made crucially shorter exposure times possible — depending upon lighting conditions only about 15 to 30 seconds compared to the previous 10 minutes. Thus, snapshots became possible for the first time.
The portrait objective lens consisted of a cemented double lens in front and a double lens with a gap in the back. The rear double lens was necessary for the correction of spherical and coma errors. The Chevalier lens used two cemented double lenses, but was immediately replaced by the Petzval lens, so that the Petzval Porträtlinse was the first cemented lens in widespread use. The first portrait objective lenses were rather small and had a diameter of 2.6 cm. The 1856 Petzval lenses produced by Dietzler had a diameter of 15 cm and a weight of 15 kg, with which one could make portraits measuring 33 by 42 cm.
In 1840, Petzval allowed the Viennese entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer to produce the lens for a one-time payment of 2,000 guldens, without a patent or a contract, which led later to a lasting controversy between Petzval and Voigtländer. Voigtländer, who had confirmed the process through his own calculations, produced a prototype in May 1840 and began production of the lens for the daguerrotype cameras in 1841, making a fortune in the process. The thermionic cameras were made from brass, using round daguerreotype plates which exposed a diameter of 8 cm. In 1841, 600 of these cameras were manufactured and sold at a price of 120 guldens. Voigtländer received a medal at the world exhibition in Paris for this achievement. These first metal-body cameras were prototypes of today's modern cameras. It took another 50 years until an improved camera became available. Petzval's portrait objective lens was used into the 1920s (often under other names) in cameras and is used today in projectors. The lens played an important role in the development of photography and cinematography.
Even with all its apparent improvements, Petzval was dissatisfied with the lens and, after some improvements, left it for others to produce and patent. The camera with the new landscape objective, produced by Dietzler, possessed a light foldable chamber with double bellows. Petzval never made a commercial profit from the lens.
Among Petzval's other works are the invention of opera glasses, lens system calculations that led to the perfection of a telescope and microscope (1843), computations for efficient binoculars, and construction of new floodlights (1847). His plan for the construction of lighting systems for ships on the Danube
could not be carried out, however. His special mirror lamp (Petzval lamp), which made possible a maximum utilization of light energy, was used particularly for the bright projectors developed by Petzval. Petzval can also be regarded as the inventor of the modern unastigmatic lens system, based on records from his estate. About 1860, Petzval conducted photogrammetric
measurements using equipment he had designed. He also proved scientifically that glowing solid compounds emit more light than burning gases. Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach later applied this principle to the gas lamp he designed.
Petzval's achievements are used today in cinematography, astronomy
, and meteorology. The Astro-Petzval-Objektiv lens is used in astronomy. This objective made a distortion-free illustration of a large part of the sky, as well as permitting photographing of galaxies and star fields. German optics companies (Töpfer, Voigtländerkorrigie, Zeiss) produced the Petzval objective lens until the 1940s. Petzval's largest contributions to optics are his theoretical bases for the construction and correction of optical lens systems. He carried out fundamental work for the theory of aberration in optical systems. A few central terms of this field were later named after Petzval:
To the regret of physicists, Petzval never released a prepared multi-volume optical work.
, Petzval stressed practical applicability. He said, "Mankind does not exist for science's sake, but science should be used to improve the conditions of mankind." He worked on applications of the Laplace transformation. Arguably it could be called the "Petzval transformation", since he was the first to study it and its applications in usual linear differential equations systematically. His work was very thorough, but not completely satisfying, since he could not use an edge integration in order to invert the transformation. Petzval wrote a paper in two volumes as well as a long work on this subject. A controversy with the student Simon Spritzer, who accused Petzval of plagiarism of Pierre-Simon Laplace
, led the Spritzer-influenced mathematicians George Boole
and Jules Henri Poincaré to later name the transformation after Laplace. Petzval tried to represent practically everything in his environment mathematically. Thus he tried to mathematically model fencing or the course of the horse. His obsession with mathematics finally led to the discovery of the portrait objective.
, Petzval was particularly concerned with string
oscillation
s, differential equations of the string oscillations, and the mathematical theory of musical instruments. He designed a piano
with three key sequences. Petzval developed a theory of the oscillations of strained strings as well as his own theory of tone systems.
of Košice, is located in Spišská Belá, in the house where Petzval was born. The crater Petzval
on the far side of the Moon
is named after him, as are roads and statues in modern Slovakia, Austria
, and Hungary.
In 1980 a planetoid (3716 Petzval, 1980 TG) was named after Petzval upon the request of the astronomical institute in Tatranská Lomnica
and Czech scientists; Petzval's portrait objective lens made possible the discovery of many planetoids at the end of the 19th century. The Austrian Board of Education has bestowed the "Petzval Medal" for special achievements in the area of scientific photography since 1928.
Spišská Belá
Spišská Belá is a town in the Kežmarok District in the Prešov Region in Spiš in northern Slovakia.-History:The town was first mentioned in historical records in 1263. The town received town rights in 1271. Scientist and inventor Joseph Petzval was born here in 1807. The town center has been...
– September 19, 1891) was a Hungarian / Slovak mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, inventor, and physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
of German origin, born in Upper Hungary
Upper Hungary
Upper Hungary is the usual English translation for the area that was historically the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, now mostly present-day Slovakia...
(today Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
).
He is best known for his work in optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
. Petzval studied and later lectured at the Institutum Geometricum (currently Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
The Budapest University of Technology and Economics , in hungarian abbreviated as BME, English official abbreviation BUTE, is the most significant University of Technology in Hungary and is also one of the oldest Institutes of Technology in the world, having been founded in 1782.-History:BME is...
) in Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
(today part of Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
). He headed the Institute of Practical Geometry and Hydrology/Architecture between 1841 and 1848. Later in life, he accepted an appointment to a chair of mathematics at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. Petzval became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest.-History:...
in 1873.
Petzval is considered to be one of the main founders of geometrical optics
Geometrical optics
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, describes light propagation in terms of "rays". The "ray" in geometric optics is an abstraction, or "instrument", which can be used to approximately model how light will propagate. Light rays are defined to propagate in a rectilinear path as far as they travel in...
, modern photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and cinematography
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
. Among his inventions are the Petzval portrait lens
Petzval lens
The Petzval lens was developed in 1840 by Joseph Petzval. It consisted of two doublet lenses with an aperture stop in between. The front lens is well corrected for spherical aberrations but introduces coma. The second doublet corrects for this and the position of the stop corrects most of the...
and opera glasses
Opera glasses
Opera glasses, also known as theater binoculars or Galilean binoculars, are compact, low-power optical magnification devices, usually used at performance events, whose name is derived from traditional use at opera performances. Magnification power below 5x is usually desired in these circumstances...
, both still in common use today. He is also credited with the discovery of the Laplace transform and is also known for his extensive work on aberration in optical systems
Aberration in optical systems
Aberrations are departures of the performance of an optical system from the predictions of paraxial optics. Aberration leads to blurring of the image produced by an image-forming optical system. It occurs when light from one point of an object after transmission through the system does not converge...
.
Ethnicity and name
Petzval was an ethnic Czech. He was born in Szepesbéla / Zipser Bela, in the multi-ethnic Kingdom of HungaryKingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
within the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
(today Spišská Belá
Spišská Belá
Spišská Belá is a town in the Kežmarok District in the Prešov Region in Spiš in northern Slovakia.-History:The town was first mentioned in historical records in 1263. The town received town rights in 1271. Scientist and inventor Joseph Petzval was born here in 1807. The town center has been...
, Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
) as the son of a German
Carpathian Germans
Carpathian Germans , sometimes simply called Slovak Germans , are a group of German language speakers on the territory of present-day Slovakia...
schoolteacher. Petzval's ancestors came from Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
(the present-day Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
). The original spelling of his father's name was Ján Krtitel Pecival. In 1801, his father married the Zipser-German Zuzana Kreutzmann, who was born in Szepesbéla, Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, a daughter of the previous teacher at the same school in Zipser Bela. The couple brought up six children: Gustáv Adolf (1800–1803), who died prematurely; Nestor Aemilianus (1804–1806); Jozef Maximilián; Petrol Baltazár (1809–1889); and three daughters. In 1810, the family moved to Késmárk (today Kežmarok
Kežmarok
Kežmarok is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia , on the Poprad River.-History:...
) and in 1819 to Leutschau
Levoca
Levoča is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia with a population of 14,600. The town has a historic center with a well preserved town wall, a Renaissance church with the highest wooden altar in Europe, carved by Master Paul of Levoča, and many other Renaissance buildings.On 28 June 2009,...
(today Levoča
Levoca
Levoča is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia with a population of 14,600. The town has a historic center with a well preserved town wall, a Renaissance church with the highest wooden altar in Europe, carved by Master Paul of Levoča, and many other Renaissance buildings.On 28 June 2009,...
).
Magyars, Germans and Slavs all lay claim on Petzvál.
Petzval's entire family shared an aptitude for technology. His father worked as a teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
at the evangelical school in Zipser Bela, as well as an organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
in Zipser Bela and later in Käsmark
Kežmarok
Kežmarok is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia , on the Poprad River.-History:...
. He was also a conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and a geodesist
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...
in Lőcse. He had a reputation as an outstanding musician and composer, who was also gifted mechanically. In 1824, he was awarded two patents: one for improvements to the pendulum clock
Pendulum clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a resonant device; it swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on its length, and resists swinging at other rates...
and the other for a "polygraph" (typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
). Petzval's brother, Petrol Baltazár Petzval, was a well-respected mathematician, engineer and astronomer.
Life
Petzval attended elementary school in KäsmarkKežmarok
Kežmarok is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia , on the Poprad River.-History:...
, and began his secondary school studies in Kežmarok and Pudlein
Podolínec
Podolínec is a town in the Stará Ľubovňa District of the Prešov Region in northern Slovakia.-History:Originally Podoliniec belonged to Poland and was part of the Ziema Sądecka land...
. On October 1, 1819, he returned to his family in Leutschau
Levoca
Levoča is a town in the Spiš region of eastern Slovakia with a population of 14,600. The town has a historic center with a well preserved town wall, a Renaissance church with the highest wooden altar in Europe, carved by Master Paul of Levoča, and many other Renaissance buildings.On 28 June 2009,...
, and entered high school. Both in elementary school and high school he ranked among the best in his class in the subjects of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
(the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary) and religion; however, he struggled with his Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
. Before arriving at Leutschau, he was, interestingly enough, also very weak in mathematics. In Leutschau, however, he clearly improved in this discipline.
One anecdote told about Petzval is as follows: When his family had already decided to make a shoemaker out of Petzval, he read the book Analytic Paper on the Elements of Mathematics by the German mathematician Hauser over the summer holidays, just after completing his fourth class in elementary school. He was preparing to undergo a repeat class in mathematics. After Petzval finished the book, the child who had been a weak math pupil swiftly became a math genius.
After finishing high school, Petzval decided to move to the Institutum Geometricum, the engineering faculty of the Pester University. Before that, he had to complete a two-year Lyceum
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
, which he attended from 1823 to 1825 in Kaschau
Košice
Košice is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary...
. When he arrived at Košice in 1823, Petzval was already well-versed in the subjects of Latin, mathematical analysis, classical literature and stylistics. In addition to his Slovak
Slovak language
Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...
he was able to speak perfectly in Czech, German and Hungarian. With his father's assistance, he also learned French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
After completing the Lyceum, Petzval worked for a year as an educator for Count Almássy in the Heves county
Heves (former county)
Heves was the name an administrative county in the former Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory, which is presently in northern Hungary, was slightly larger than that of present Heves county. The capital of the county was Eger.-Geography:...
. In addition to bringing in some urgently-needed money, this experience also provided him with important social contacts.
From 1826 to 1828, Petzval studied at the Institutum Geometricum in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, and earned an engineering diploma in 1828. In the same year, he joined the graduate degree program of the university, and became the self-appointed adjunct chair for the Physics Department (in 1831). From 1828 to 1835, Petzval simultaneously worked as an urban engineer
Urban engineering
Municipal or urban engineering applies the tools of science, art and engineering in an urban environment.-Summary:Municipal engineering is concerned with municipal infrastructure...
for the city of Prague—-particularly as a specialist in flood abatement and sewers—-and studied mathematics, mechanics and practical geometry. He authored an unrealized plan to build a navigation channel around Prague. In 1830, his dam computations saved Prague from an inundation caused by the flooding of the Vltava
Vltava
The Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic, running north from its source in Šumava through Český Krumlov, České Budějovice, and Prague, merging with the Elbe at Mělník...
. After he received his Ph.D. in 1832, he taught as an associate professor at the university in Budapest. During this period, he also received a degree in mathematics. In 1835, he was appointed a university professor in higher mathematics.
After being invited to the University of Vienna in 1836, Petzval accepted a position of the chair of mathematics there in 1837, and worked until 1877 as a professor of mathematics. Apart from mathematics, he was also concerned with mechanics, ballistics, optics, and acoustics. His lectures on the theory of algebraic equations, which integrated linear and differential equations with constant and variable coefficients, ballistics, acoustic theory, and other areas were high quality and became well attended.
Petzval moved into a rented abandoned monastery at Kahlenberg
Kahlenberg
Kahlenberg is a mountain located in the 19th District within Vienna, Austria .-General:Kahlenberg lies in the Wienerwald and is one of the most popular destinations for day-trips from Vienna, offering a view over the entire city. Parts of Lower Austria can also be seen from Stefaniewarte at the...
mountain (according to some sources after 1859). He founded his own glass-sharpening workshop there. His lenses became world famous because Petzval was also a skillful lens sharpener and precision mechanic.
In 1840, he discovered his famous portrait lens. 1845 brought disputes with the entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer (1812–1878) over who had the right to produce Petzval's lenses. In 1859, Petzval's home was broken into, and his manuscripts — a result of many years of research — were destroyed. Petzval never managed to reconstruct the lost documents. His most refined technical book on optics, lost with his manuscripts, would never appear in print. From then on, he primarily concerned himself with acoustics and began to withdraw from society. His enterprise with Carl Dietzler failed in 1862 (see further below); Dietzler died in 1872.
In 1869, at the age of 62, Petzval married his housekeeper, but she died four years later. In 1877, he stopped lecturing, withdrew to a monastery on Kahlenberg, and became a hermit
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
.
Petzval died in Vienna in 1891, nearly forgotten, embittered, and destitute. His grave is in the Viennese central cemetery. His bitterness at the end of his life can probably be traced, on the one hand, to his continuing controversy with Voigtländer, the loss of his manuscripts, and his business failure; and on the other hand, to the fact that he was never really acknowledged for his lifelong work in the field of optics. Just before his death, Petzval was reported to have said:
- "I defeated the light, I have it firmly in hand, because there is much darkness in the world too."
Private life and hobbies
Petzval was a good sportsman and rider. As a young child, he often traveled with his family to the High TatrasHigh Tatras
High Tatras or High Tatra are a mountain range on the borders between Slovakia and Poland. They are a part of the Tatra Mountains...
, and was also a dedicated athlete. In Vienna, he was for a long time the best fencer and ring fighter in the city. He also inherited an excellent talent for music from his father. Allegedly, while he was a lecturer in Vienna, he always rode to his lectures on a black Arabian horse.
Petzval never wanted to communicate anything about his private life, and was therefore relatively inscrutable to others during his lifetime. As Dr. Ermenyi described in his book, Dr. Josef Petzval's Life
- ". . . he went so far as to always insert a bare point, for example, use the appearing annual yearbook of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, in whatever apart from the names of the members the date and the place appear aforementioned to the birth for itself into this column."
At the end of his life he lived in increasingly greater isolation in his "castle" on Kahlenberg, with only his horse for company, although several academies and scholarly societies appointed him a member (member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (1846/1849), external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1873), honorary member of the Union of the Czech mathematicians and physicists (1881), carriers of the French Charles Chevalier Platinmedaille, and others).
Disputes
Petzval placed very high requirements on himself and others. That was probably connected with his critical, contentious and sarcastic nature, which brought him many conflicts, particularly in the field of mathematics.Petzval had a controversy with Christian Doppler
Christian Doppler
Christian Andreas Doppler was an Austrian mathematician and physicist.-Life and work:Christian Doppler was raised in Salzburg, Austria, the son of a stonemason. Doppler could not work in his father's business because of his generally weak physical condition...
over problems of acoustics, and Doppler responded in 1852 with a book entitled "Remarks Over the Objections Stated by Professor Petzval Against the Correctness of My Theory".
In particular he was involved in lengthy disputes with the entrepreneur Voigtländer. These began in 1845, when Petzval raised the issue of fraud for the first time. Because Petzval only held a patent in Austria, Voigtländer shifted his production to Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
in Germany
German Confederation
The German Confederation was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia...
, where he produced about 60,000 Petzval lenses in the following 20 years. Petzval for his part co-operated since 1854 with the Austrian optics producer Dietzler. The latter's lenses were marketed in Austria as the "photographic Dialyt
Dialyte lens
A dialyte lens is a compound lens design that corrects optical aberrations where the lens elements are widely air-spaced. The design is used to save on the amount of glass used for specific elements or where elements can not be cemented because they have dissimilar curvatures...
", while Voigtländer marketed the lenses in Germany and Austria as the "Voightländer Orthoskop". After further interference by Voigtländer, Dietzler went bankrupt in 1862. When Petzval threatened legal action, Voigtländer closed his Austrian plant in 1866. Petzval could have then transferred the marketing, but he had renounced working with optics after his home was robbed in 1859 and worked instead on acoustics. In 1862, he also stopped lecturing on optics.
Optics
Petzval's greatest achievements lie in his work with geometric optics. In 1839, Louis DaguerreLouis Daguerre
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography.- Biography :...
presented the Daguerreotype
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process. The image is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate....
, the first form of photography. Petzval learned of the invention from his friend, Viennese professor Andreas von Ettinghausen. The daguerreotype was problematic in that it required exposure times as long as 30 minutes to create a portrait. With Ettninghausen's urging, Petzval set up a workshop and laboratory at Kahlenberg in Vienna and, after six months of complex computations, produced designs for improved objective lenses for both portraiture and landscape photography. Because the artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
was one of the few occupations that used advanced mathematical computations at the time, Archduke Ludwig lent eight artillery cannoners and three corporals to the computational efforts. The calculations these men carried out in tandem with each other have been regarded as an early (albeit human) example of a parallel computer.
Petzval's portrait objective lens (Petzval Porträtobjektiv
Petzval lens
The Petzval lens was developed in 1840 by Joseph Petzval. It consisted of two doublet lenses with an aperture stop in between. The front lens is well corrected for spherical aberrations but introduces coma. The second doublet corrects for this and the position of the stop corrects most of the...
) was an almost distortionless Anachromatischer vierlinser (double achromatic objective lens, with four lenses in three groups). The luminous intensity of this flat "portrait lens" was substantially higher than the daguerre standard of 1839, the Wollaston chevalier linse . The screen with a focal length of 160 mm made crucially shorter exposure times possible — depending upon lighting conditions only about 15 to 30 seconds compared to the previous 10 minutes. Thus, snapshots became possible for the first time.
The portrait objective lens consisted of a cemented double lens in front and a double lens with a gap in the back. The rear double lens was necessary for the correction of spherical and coma errors. The Chevalier lens used two cemented double lenses, but was immediately replaced by the Petzval lens, so that the Petzval Porträtlinse was the first cemented lens in widespread use. The first portrait objective lenses were rather small and had a diameter of 2.6 cm. The 1856 Petzval lenses produced by Dietzler had a diameter of 15 cm and a weight of 15 kg, with which one could make portraits measuring 33 by 42 cm.
In 1840, Petzval allowed the Viennese entrepreneur Peter Wilhelm Friedrich von Voigtländer to produce the lens for a one-time payment of 2,000 guldens, without a patent or a contract, which led later to a lasting controversy between Petzval and Voigtländer. Voigtländer, who had confirmed the process through his own calculations, produced a prototype in May 1840 and began production of the lens for the daguerrotype cameras in 1841, making a fortune in the process. The thermionic cameras were made from brass, using round daguerreotype plates which exposed a diameter of 8 cm. In 1841, 600 of these cameras were manufactured and sold at a price of 120 guldens. Voigtländer received a medal at the world exhibition in Paris for this achievement. These first metal-body cameras were prototypes of today's modern cameras. It took another 50 years until an improved camera became available. Petzval's portrait objective lens was used into the 1920s (often under other names) in cameras and is used today in projectors. The lens played an important role in the development of photography and cinematography.
Even with all its apparent improvements, Petzval was dissatisfied with the lens and, after some improvements, left it for others to produce and patent. The camera with the new landscape objective, produced by Dietzler, possessed a light foldable chamber with double bellows. Petzval never made a commercial profit from the lens.
Among Petzval's other works are the invention of opera glasses, lens system calculations that led to the perfection of a telescope and microscope (1843), computations for efficient binoculars, and construction of new floodlights (1847). His plan for the construction of lighting systems for ships on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
could not be carried out, however. His special mirror lamp (Petzval lamp), which made possible a maximum utilization of light energy, was used particularly for the bright projectors developed by Petzval. Petzval can also be regarded as the inventor of the modern unastigmatic lens system, based on records from his estate. About 1860, Petzval conducted photogrammetric
Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the practice of determining the geometric properties of objects from photographic images. Photogrammetry is as old as modern photography and can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century....
measurements using equipment he had designed. He also proved scientifically that glowing solid compounds emit more light than burning gases. Carl Freiherr Auer von Welsbach later applied this principle to the gas lamp he designed.
Petzval's achievements are used today in cinematography, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, and meteorology. The Astro-Petzval-Objektiv lens is used in astronomy. This objective made a distortion-free illustration of a large part of the sky, as well as permitting photographing of galaxies and star fields. German optics companies (Töpfer, Voigtländerkorrigie, Zeiss) produced the Petzval objective lens until the 1940s. Petzval's largest contributions to optics are his theoretical bases for the construction and correction of optical lens systems. He carried out fundamental work for the theory of aberration in optical systems. A few central terms of this field were later named after Petzval:
- The Petzval surface is the generally curved image plane of an unadjusted optical system.
- In the case of adherence to the Petzval condition the Petzval surface is even.
To the regret of physicists, Petzval never released a prepared multi-volume optical work.
Mathematics
In mathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, Petzval stressed practical applicability. He said, "Mankind does not exist for science's sake, but science should be used to improve the conditions of mankind." He worked on applications of the Laplace transformation. Arguably it could be called the "Petzval transformation", since he was the first to study it and its applications in usual linear differential equations systematically. His work was very thorough, but not completely satisfying, since he could not use an edge integration in order to invert the transformation. Petzval wrote a paper in two volumes as well as a long work on this subject. A controversy with the student Simon Spritzer, who accused Petzval of plagiarism of Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five volume Mécanique Céleste...
, led the Spritzer-influenced mathematicians George Boole
George Boole
George Boole was an English mathematician and philosopher.As the inventor of Boolean logic—the basis of modern digital computer logic—Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said,...
and Jules Henri Poincaré to later name the transformation after Laplace. Petzval tried to represent practically everything in his environment mathematically. Thus he tried to mathematically model fencing or the course of the horse. His obsession with mathematics finally led to the discovery of the portrait objective.
Acoustics
In the study of acousticsAcoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
, Petzval was particularly concerned with string
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
oscillation
Oscillation
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and AC power. The term vibration is sometimes used more narrowly to mean a mechanical oscillation but sometimes...
s, differential equations of the string oscillations, and the mathematical theory of musical instruments. He designed a piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
with three key sequences. Petzval developed a theory of the oscillations of strained strings as well as his own theory of tone systems.
Memorials
The Jozef Maximilián Petzval Museum of the History of Photography and Cinematography, part of the Slovak Technical MuseumSlovak Technical Museum
The Slovak Technical Museum is a museum based in the eastern Slovak city of Košice, with branches throughout Slovakia. It was established in 1947 and opened to the public in 1948 under name Technical Museum , renamed in 1983 to the current name.-Museums:The main museum has expositions focused on...
of Košice, is located in Spišská Belá, in the house where Petzval was born. The crater Petzval
Petzval (crater)
Petzval is a lunar impact crater that lies in the southern latitudes of the Moon's far side. This crater is located to the south of the larger Lippman, and to the north of Doerfel. It was namer after the Hungarian-German inventor Joseph Petzval....
on the far side of the Moon
Far side of the Moon
The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that is permanently turned away, and is not visible from the surface of the Earth. The far hemisphere was first photographed by the Soviet Luna 3 probe in 1959, and was first directly observed by human eyes when the Apollo 8 mission orbited the Moon...
is named after him, as are roads and statues in modern Slovakia, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and Hungary.
In 1980 a planetoid (3716 Petzval, 1980 TG) was named after Petzval upon the request of the astronomical institute in Tatranská Lomnica
Tatranská Lomnica
Tatranská Lomnica is a town in the Slovakian part of the High Tatras mountains. It is a skiing and hiking resort best known for the cable car to Lomnický štít, one of the steepest in Europe and remarkable for its lack of support pylons between the two stations...
and Czech scientists; Petzval's portrait objective lens made possible the discovery of many planetoids at the end of the 19th century. The Austrian Board of Education has bestowed the "Petzval Medal" for special achievements in the area of scientific photography since 1928.
Works
- Bericht über die Ergebnisse einiger dioptrischen Untersuchungen (Pest, 1843)
- Eigenschaften einer guten Camera-Obscura (WienWienWien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
, 1847) - Integration der linearen Differenzialgleichungen mit Constanten und veränderlichen Coefficienten, I–II. (WienWienWien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
, 1853–1859) - Berichte über optische Untersuchungen (WienWienWien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
, 1857) - Über das neue Landschaft – als Fernobjektiv (WienWienWien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...
, 1858) - Theorie der Störungen der Stützlinien (bei Gewölben und Hängebrücken) (LeipzigLeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, 1904–1905) - Theorie der Tonsysteme (LeipzigLeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, 1904–1905) - Aus den Vorlesungen über Ballistik. Ein Beitr. zur Geschichte der Ballistik (LeipzigLeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, 1908)